News | Find Net Solutions - effective web solutions

Google Wants You To Be Safe

October 7, 2017/in SEO, Smart Business, Website Tips /by admin

Just Recently (August 2017) Google Added HTTPS:// As A New Search Algorithm

So that means that if your website has a SSL Secure Certificate (with Padlock Icon) then the URL (website address) starts with HTTPS:// and not the standard HTTP://.

By having a Secure Certificate installed for your domain Google will favour your website more than a Non Secure Website.

Google wants you to be safe when browsing the web. So if your website has an SSL Secure Certificate, that basically means the the transfer of data to your computers browser is encrypted, thus safer.

If you want to get a SSL Certificate we offer the best type Extended Validation (EV) SSL Certificates rather than the Domain Validation (DV) SSL Certificates. Why because with a full EV SSL Certificate, the Certificate Authority checks the right of the applicant to use a specific domain name PLUS it conducts a THOROUGH vetting of the organization. Thus it is a real SSL Certification.

Please Contact Us if you would like to know more…

Be Smart & Back Up Now

August 15, 2017/in Smart Business, Website Tips /by admin

Smart Tip – Back Up Your Website & Emails

For Our Clients that have had their website updated in the last 5 years, you need to read & take action.

Those clients that haven’t had an update in 5 years, You Are Loosing Business, Take action Call Us NOW

Be Smart & Back Up Your Website

Website Back Ups
As you probably know we do a monthly back up of your website.
However have you got a copy? OR are you relying on the cloud & the server?

Be Smart & save a copy to your hard drive!
To find out how – contact us for help.

Email Back Ups

If you use IMAP emails – you need to read on
The difference between IMAP & POP emails – must read

Keeping it simple – Email accounts set up as IMAP means that all your emails are on the server, & you are just looking at a reflection on your computer or phone. So if your account or the server has a hiccup You may LOOSE ALL YOUR EMAILS….

So Be Smart & Back them Up
Exporting and Importing Emails Through Webmail

Our hosting offers three different webmail clients (Horde, RoundCube and Squirrelmail) for viewing and management of your email accounts. Of these three, only Horde allows the import and export of email. This will walk you through the basic steps to perform these actions.

Log into your webmail use – http://216.172.177.191:2096 and select Horde

Log In by using your email address & email password

How to Create a New Folder in Horde
You may import mail into any folder, including your inbox. However, for ease of management you might find it useful to create a separate folder for imported mail – for instance, to keep all mail exported from another host separate from your current mail structure.

To create a mail folder in Horde:

1/ Left-click the Folder Actions icon in the left menu:

2/ Left-click Create Mailbox.

3/ In the “Create mailbox” popup, enter the name of the new folder and click OK:

4/ Your new folder will now appear in Horde’s left column:

How to Import Email

Your email should be in a .mbox or .eml file to be imported into Horde. Unzip your file first if you were provided a .zip file.

To import your emails via Horde:

1/ Right-click the folder into which you wish to import messages:

2/ On the next screen, left-click Import:

3/ In the popup, browse to the target file and click OK:

4/ A successful import will display a green message bar with details:

A failed import attempt will display a red error bar:

(This usually results from trying to import a zipped or corrupted file.)

How to Export Email

It is generally a good idea to create backups of important email folders, and Horde’s export function allows you to do this readily.

To export your email via Horde:

1/ Right-click the folder from which you wish to export messages. For instance, to export your inbox contents, right-click the Inbox icon in the left menu.

2/ On the next screen, left-click Export:

3/ The resulting popup will allow you to select to download either an uncompressed or a .zip-compressed .mbox file:

4/ Click OK in the popup window to start the download of the .mbox or zip file.

Note: The export function will not provide feedback messages. The .mbox or .zip file will be created in the download folder per your browser settings.

Square Up Card Payments Made Simple

June 28, 2017/in Smart Business, Whats New /by admin

Here is a tip if you take payments with credit cards

Are you getting sick of paying your bank fees to have an EFTPOS machine?

We got rid of our banks EFTPOS machine and saving as we don’t pay monthly rental fee with Square Up.

Square Up lets you accept tap-and-go cards and devices and take chip cards, whether you’re on the move or at your counter.

They have clear pricing. Fast deposits. No surprise fees. Know exactly what you pay and get paid fast with Square. Tapped, inserted or swiped payments 1.9%. No other Fees

Accept every major credit card for the same rate, Visa, Mastercard and American Express.

Accept card payments on your computer or your mobile with out any other cost or equipment. Or set up the Square swipe or touch card reader for a small once off cost. Set up a receipt printer & cash draw and have your front counter fully functional.

Square Up cater for all types of businesses, without hefty fees.

Find out more here

Website Security & Monitoring

June 28, 2017/in Smart Business, Website Tips /by admin

Our Clients Website Security & Monitoring

Most of our clients have 24/7 Security & Monitoring which means

These clients websites have had world class 24/7 Security & Monitoring. Which gives great peace of mind to our clients & for us as their website & hosting administrators. The software helps with &/or supplies;

Creates an effective firewall for websites
Blocks out hackers to the website
Blocks users who attempts & fails to log in to many times
Monitors the website software, from base functionalities to add ons like website plugins etc.
Reports by email & in website admin dashboard, the number of attacks & blocked IPs & their origin.

However no matter what ever the security monitoring or firewall is it can only protect against what possible breaches that it knows. So even the smartest, most flexible, most adaptive and most upto date firewall is it still can’t give 100% guarantee nothing will penetrate.

What we do know is that you are 99.9999% safe, when all updates are done as requested by the security monitoring software. And that the websites admin has extremely strong passwords.

So if you get a warning from us or our software, please act on it straight away, or ask us to help you.

However the Biggest Security Threat is YOU or Your Staff

If you use weak or moderate password for the website log in, email or computer log ins.
If you don’t have good & updated internet & email security on every computer
If you open an email that his affected with a virus, trojan, spyware or malware
If you click on an email link that is effective
If you visit websites that are not trusted
If you click on a link of a website that is affected with a virus, trojan, spyware or malware

Peoples miss conceptions

That any software that protects you from any virus, trojan, spyware or malware will give you 100% protect.

Spam Assassin

Spam Assassin is email server software that can be set on a client email server. The software has 5 levels of security, however the program only is a spam filter, NOT a virus, trojan, spyware or malware program

In Conclusion;

software to monitor something only monitors that eg website security.
firewall software needs to be kept updates & is never 100% secure wether it be website, server, email or mobile
alerts for updates should be done straight away
no email program can stop what a human does in regard to clicking, opening or visiting links that can infect his computer, emails or hosting server.

Business Email Tips 1

June 25, 2017/in Whats New /by admin

Smart Tips for Business Email Accounts

1/ Keep Control of Your Emails, Look Professional & be more Saleable

Its so basic! simply use your domain email address

Look Professional by Using Your Domain Email
When a business uses their domain emails like [email protected] they appear more professional & at the same time hint their website site address. If you use a Bigpond, iinet, Optus, Gmail, Hotmail or similar (non your domain email) It is time to change and be more Professional and be in control of your emails & make your business more saleable.

By using your Domain Email eg [email protected] ;
a/ You have control of your email accounts rather than using your ISP Internet Service Providers emails like Bigpond, Optus, iinet etc. So if you change ISP you won’t loose your business emails. So use your domain email, something like [email protected] rather than [email protected]

b/ Your business will be more saleable, if you use your domain emails like [email protected], as you have full control.
The new owners of your business don’t have use your ISP service and won’t have all the dramas of transferring services. It also gives them the freedom to change the ISP for the business.

c/ All business email address that you have been using is what is in peoples address books, contact lists & online listings. Isn’t it better to be in control of your businesses emails, rather than be at the mercy of an ISP or third party you have no control over. Simply use your business domain emails.

2/ Set Up Emails as POP or IMAP to best suit your Business

Read about the Pros & Cons of POP & IMAP emails – https://findnetsolutions.com/smart-business/smart-email-management-for-business/

Basically when your emails are set up as

IMAP emails – the emails (folders, reply emails etc) sit on the server & you are looking at a reflection of the server from your email client.
POP emails – the emails (folders, reply emails etc) sit on Your Computer (device) you actually are downloading emails from the mail server. You can set up POP emails to keep emails on server for ‘so many days’ so you can collect POP emails on multiple computers (email programs)

If you have a question please contact us

Improving Google Crawler Speed

June 12, 2017/in SEO, Website Tips /by admin

How to get Google to crawl our site faster?

There are a few things you can do to improve your crawl speed.

Google crawlers are also know as Googlebots or Google’s web crawling bot, sometimes also called a spider. The more Googlebots crawl your website the better it will be indexed. The better your Google indexing is directly reflected in how high your website appears in a Google search.

Google wants to show a Googler (a person searching on Google) the best results for the search terms they search for. So Google ranks (indexes) websites for search terms. Google works this out with it’s ever changing Analytics.

Have an authoritative website

An authoritative website is basically a website that is recognised buy Google to;

Have relevant and recent information, this can be achieved by adding regular, informative, relevant well written (short, well formed sentences with good grammar)
Have back links from similar or related website, showing that this website is an important part of this topic being searched on Google.
Note: irrelevant or spammy links from non related websites or on non related topics can ban a website from any Google search.
Be a site with little or no error of coding faults
– bad links or 301 redirect pages

Google also looks at

Your websites security
– are all the software that your website has up to date?
– Do you have an SSL Certificate for your website?
Google now penalisers a website that collects any persons details (like a contact form) if they done have https:// as the URL prefix
a XML sitemap installed, so Google can find it’s way around you site easily
Pages need to load fast,
– so good website coding is important,
– smart plug in are important to improve caching & file loading speed
– images with the smallest file size is critical
Not being Responsive (mobile friendly website) Google penalises websites that are not mobile friendly when searched on a mobile devices, thus your website needs to be Responsive.
Too many URL on the one page to the same page etc, as this can slow Google crawlers down, as do spammy links.

Tips to increase your crawl speed

A couple of simple tips to increase your site’s crawl speed:

Using the methods above, find and fix all the errors.
– Especially making your site Responsive (mobile friendly)
– Have an SSL Certificate – having URL that starts with https://
– Having a website that all the software is up to date
Keep your site recent and relevant with fresh quality well written content
Make sure your site is fast.
Add an XML sitemap to your site and submit it to the search engines.
If all of that fails to improve your crawl speed, start link building!

If you have any questions or need a hand please contact us

Bitcoin Welcomed by Find Net Solutions

April 24, 2017/in Smart Business, Whats New /by admin

Find Net Solutions welcomes payments by Bitcoin

Karanda Holdings Pty Ltd, web solutions business, Find Net Solutions realises that new digital currencies like Bitcoins are the future.

Bitcoin is the worlds leading crypto currency (digital currency) and as it is easy & convenient, why not accept it as a method of payment.

If Richard Branson accepts Bitcoin for payment for one of his Virgin Galactic space trips (watch the short video below). So why not a Find Net Solutions a web solutions business on the Gold Coast Australia!

Want to know more about the dynamic future projected for Bitcoin, watch this other video below
’10 Reasons Why Bitcoin will Destroy All Time Highs in 2017.

Want to set up a Free Bitcoin Wallet – try CoinJar

There are many opportunities to profit from Bitcoin and other Crypto Currencies if you would like more information – contact us

If you want to understand more about Bitcoin, Crypto Currencies & opportunities around digital currencies – contact us for more information

HTTPS for Google Ranking

March 9, 2017/in SEO, Smart Business, Website Tips, Whats New /by admin

This is the latest news from Google on security and safety on the Internet

HTTPS as a ranking signal

Security is a top priority for Google. We invest a lot in making sure that our services use industry-leading security, like strong HTTPS encryption by default. That means that people using Search, Gmail and Drive, for example, automatically have a secure connection to Google.

Beyond our own stuff, we’re also working to make the Internet safer more broadly. A big part of that is making sure that websites people access from Google are secure. For instance, we have created resources to help webmasters prevent and fix security breaches on their sites.

Read full article at Google Blog

The Main Reasons to Listen to Google

They are the most used search engine with 85 to 90% market share.
If your website has a contact form then it is considered by Google to now need a SSL certificate to be a HTTPS website & rank better than your competitors that don’t.
Yes all Shopping Cart websites definitely need to be HTTPS (have a SSL certificate installed)

We recommend that we all heed Google and add SSL Certificate to our websites, to make your site HTTPS. That is to have HTTPS://domain.com.au rather than the standard HTTP://domain.com.au

Contact us to make your website HTTPS secure with SSL Certificate

Email Marketing Tips

January 27, 2017/in Email Marketing Tips, Smart Business /by admin

This is part E of the A to Z of Business & Website Tips

Improve Your Email Marketing ROI with an effective Landing Page

Effective landing pages are;

By far the easiest and best way to Launch Your Product or Service
Remarking potential – Build your mailing list & having a database allows you to sell your other products and services.
Grow your customer base – From visitors, to subscribers, to customers, to raving customers who repurchase and recommend.

Visit an effective Landing Page Demo

Sending bulk emails from your domain email accounts normally causes problems, including high email rejections & bounced emails, non delivery of emails & being listed with spam & anti virus programs. This can cause huge headaches as it can effect all your emails from your domain. It’s definitely a no-no to send unsolicited emails.

So for bulk emails it is highly recommended that you use a Mass Email Program.

5 Best Free Mass Email Software to Send Bulk Email

Looking for mass emailing software? Here is a list of best bulk email programs that can help you easily send bulk emails. These bulk email sending software will help you save thousands of dollars that is spent with email marketing services.

SendinBlue

SendinBlue is one of the best all-in-one marketing dashboard for businesses to manage their email marketing and SMS campaigns. Their tools make it easy to design mobile-friendly emails, manage large contact lists, track results, and optimize campaigns.
With a Free account you can send up to 9,000 emails per month & have unlimited email addresses

MailChimp

MailChimp is an email program that is around since 2001 and is used by more than 7 million people around the world. Forms can be easily added into your website with, double opt in, email marketing follow up, easy list management and many more features.
With a Free account you can send up to 12,000 emails per month & a database of up to 2,000 addresses.

SendBlaster

The latest version SendBlaster 3 is available both as a free email sender software download along with a professional edition. No subscription is needed and one needs to pay just once for a lifetime license.

Bulk Mailer

The Bulk Mailer accepts mailer lists that are generated in a variety of programs such as Access, Excel, DBF, Word, that are prepared in ASCII text files (.txt, .lst). It is also possible to enter an unlimited number of email addresses.

Free Bulk Email Software

32Bit provides a free email blast software that is one of the best on the Internet. It consists of a wide variety of features that help make life easier. Some of the features include private contact list, HTML editor, bounce processing, and synergy with Google Analytics.

3 Other Email Programs for Sending Mass Emails

Aweber

Used by 100,000+ email marketers. You can connecting your website forms with AWeber, making it easier to follow up after someone gives you their email address

Constant Contact

Helping small business do more business. With over 15 years of experience and more than 650,000 customers, Constant Contact is the trusted leader in small business marketing

OptinMonster

The Best WordPress Popup and Lead Generation Plugin– OptinMonster helps you grow your email list by converting visitors into subscribers and customers. Get more email subscribers now!

Email Marketing Strategies to Grow Your List

Are you looking for easy ways to grow your email list?

Many people just install a sidebar opt-in form on their website and wait for users to subscribe. This results in slow growth.

There is so much more you can do to grow your email list and much faster, however it requires more time & commitment.

Here are some proven ways to grow your email list.

Use Multiple Sign up Forms on Your Website

If you want to grow your email list quickly, then you need to use multiple sign up forms to give users more opportunity to join your email list. You can combine a sidebar sign up form with a floating footer bar, slide in or scroll box or a lightbox popup to make your signup forms more noticeable. You should also have a call to action at the bottom of Blog / News Articles.

Don’t forget your website header slide show, have a Call to Action, or have a Sign Up Form in one of your image slides

Offer a Promotion or Upgrade

Incorporate a call to action with a promotion or upgrade. Bribe your visitors with an offer.

Make the offer enticing, interesting or valuable. The call to action is the visitor gets an upgrade or a free service to optin into to your list. They sign up for the offer & you get their details to re market to.

Social Media Opt-In

Facebook has introduced call to action buttons for business pages. These buttons are prominently displayed on top of your cover image and are visible without scrolling.

Twitter Ads offers another social platform that you can use to boost your lead generation efforts.
In fact, Twitter even allows you to run lead generation directly from Twitter. This way users can sign up for your email list without leaving Twitter.

YouTube is one of the largest social media platforms, and the second most popular search engine in the world. If you are using YouTube videos as part of your marketing strategy, then you can utilize your YouTube channel to grow your email list. Here is how to add YouTube action cards to your videos.

Have a Landing Page

Improve Your Email Marketing ROI with an effective Landing Page

A landing page is a page that has Call to Action, a sign up form & sometimes videos and or testimonials.

Visit an effective Landing Page Demo

Remarking potential – Build your mailing list & having a database allows you to sell your other products and services.
Grow your customer base – From visitors, to subscribers, to customers, to raving customers who repurchase and recommend.

Here are a few things to think about

Make it easy to subscribe
If your opt-in form (page) is too hard to sign up, has too many field to complete or if the article is too wordy, you will loose possible good future clients. Keep it simple and brief.

Send a welcome email
Touch your new list member straight after they opt-in to the offer and make sure they got the link or offer again.

Send follow up emails

Send a thank you email, making sure they got the offer & give them the link again
Send a reminder email a day or two later, touch base again a suitable time. However don’t hound your list member as they will unsubscribe.
Make your follow up emails valuable to your list member

Think about mobile
A lot of people check their emails on their mobiles, so make sure it is easy to read on small screen devices.

Know your spam rules
A lot of innocent people send spam because they didn’t know any better. Read up on the CAN-SPAM act to avoid any trouble.

Need a hand?
Have a question?
Contact us for FREE help & support – Click Here

Domains Protecting Your Brand

January 24, 2017/in SEO, Smart Business, Whats New /by admin

This is part D of the A to Z of Business & Website Tips

Domain Name Registration Protecting your Brand

When starting a new website, one of the first and most important decisions you have to make is choosing a domain name. That choice will impact the website’s success in nearly every area, included search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing (SMM).

SEOs and search marketers purchased domains that contained their targeted keywords in order to increase CTRs (Click Through Rates) and to help gain higher rankings on Google and other search engines.

The presence of the keyword phrase in the domain was itself a ranking factor.
The presence of the keyword phrase in the domain encouraged other webmasters to include
The keyword phrase in the anchor text when linking to the site.

However with recent Google algorithm updates the domain name don’t carry as weight as they used to. However you need to protect your business & brand name.

Choosing a Brandable or Catchy Domain

The first step to building a brand is choosing a brandable domain

Your domain name is how users will find, remember, share and identify your company online.

Your brand is important, and your domain name is the foundation upon which your online brand will be built. In both social media and search engines, the domain name is the primary way by which users can identify where the link will lead.

Things to consider when choosing domains –

Secure as many relevant domains as possible – the domains extensions for relevant countries, like .com for international traders, possible future common business names and expanding brands, like franchises. Plus you need to register relevant domain names in every country domain your trade in eg Australia .com.au, NZ .co.nz & the UK register .co.uk
The domain needs to be memorable – users must be able to easily remember your domain name/brand.
Be relevant – words have implicit meanings and connotations
Easy to spell – Your domain name must be easy to spell. Avoid commonly misspelled words, intentional misspellings and hyphens
Sound authoritative – Your domain name should sound like a trustworthy authority
Shorter is better – Keep your domain name short; 1 or 2 words is best. The top 100,000 websites, on average, have nine characters in their domain names
Be unique – One of your marketing goals should be to build a distinct brand that stands out from your competitors.

Emails from Your Domain – look more professional

How professional does your band look if you use a Yahoo, Hotmail or Gmail email address as your main email address.

Be professional use your domain as your email eg [email protected] for the sales department and your personal business email address [email protected]